Darkening Blackness: Race, Gender, Class, and Pessimism in 21st-Century Black Thought

The concept of Afropessimism does not refer to Black people, but rather to the likelihood of white society overcoming its own negrophobia, and to a radical distrust in white narratives of inclusivity. What if the ideas and reforms we regard as progressive were just the new and shiny face of racism? In the time of Black Lives Matter, the unswerving dehumanization and killing of Black people form the bedrock of our civilization. But a vast anti-Black collective feeling also manifests itself as a more insidious shared unconscious, hidden from view by the doctrines we deem as emancipatory. This book challenges the simplistic and pacifying aspects of current African American thought. It puts forward alternatives to intersectionality, poststructuralism, and radical democracy, which are often prioritized in the Black analysis of race, gender, and class. Accessible, historically informed, and politically alert, this book offers a critical analysis of the groundbreaking theories and strategies that radically reimagine the future of Black lives throughout the world.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Chapter 1 The Sources of the Afropessimist Paradigm Chapter 2 Theoretical Origins of Afropessimism Chapter 3 From the Black Man as Problem to the Study of Black Men Chapter 4 A Politics of Antagonisms Postface By Tommy Curry Notes Index

About the Author :
Norman Ajari is a lecturer in Francophone Black Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

Review :
“Norman Ajari’s Darkening Blackness is a masterful defense of Afro-American pessimism and Black Male Studies against the misguided view that ‘pessimism’ means hopelessness and eternal defeat.  Instead, pessimism is treated as meaning the rejection of fantasies, especially the fantasy that says one more revision will alter insidious white racialized civil society and intrinsically unjust Euro/American institutions. Step into Ajari’s theoretical world and step out unburdened by fantasy.” Leonard Harris, Purdue University “For those who still do not understand that the pessimism in Afropessimism is not an emotional dispensation but a meta-critique of the first principles of Western thought, Norman Ajari’s Darkening Blackness is required reading. His analysis of Black Male Studies will have as many people nodding their heads as shaking their heads, which is the first step toward rigorous and honest debate.” Frank B. Wilderson III, Chancellor’s Professor of African American Studies, University of California, Irvine “an empirically informed and theoretically provocative explanation of the ontological negation that characterizes the Black social condition. Beyond the boundaries of the dominant rubrics of race-gender theory, Ajari's penetrating analysis culminates in the articulation of a normative commitment to Black Autonomy (Pan-Africanism) that has the potential to trigger a creative pinnacle in Black thought centered on the notion of self-defense.’’ Miron J. Clay-Gilmore, Ethnic and Racial Studies Journal “By presenting the Black Radical tradition and putting the emphasis on Afro-American pessimism and Black Male Studies from a Pan-African perspective, this book does much more than describe these theories but gives an understanding of the Black Radical tradition from the perspective of its negativity, taken as a power.’’ Charles des Portes, Ethnic and Racial Studies Journal “Ajari does what is necessary, which is expanding the scope of Afropessimism and, in so doing, making sure that it is in the ambit of the Black radical tradition, including its many iterations.’’ Journal of Literary Studies “Ajari's persuasive argumentation with indisputable historical and theoretical facts makes his work an impressive literature on black studies’’ Chrysanthus Ogbozo, Theoria